78 The Explosive Childmotivating their children. Still other parents may em-
bark on a behavior management program with an initial
burst of enthusiasm, energy, and vigilance but become
less enthusiastic, energetic, and vigilant over time. These
parents often return to their old, familiar patterns of
parenting.
And many parents find that behavior management
programs don’t improve their child’s behavior, even when
they stick with the program. Indeed, some parents find
that such programs actually increase the frequency and
intensity of their child’s explosions and cause their inter-
actions with their child to worsen. Why? Because reward
and punishment programs don’t teach the skills of flexi-
bility and frustration tolerance. And because getting pun-
ished or not receiving an anticipated reward makes kids
more frustrated, not less. And because, as you may have
noticed, being more inflexible yourself doesn’t help your
child be more flexible. There’s a simple equation to sum-
marize this phenomenon:
inflexibility + inflexibility = explosionBut let’s go back and take a closer look at what hap-
pened when Amy’s parents tried to implement behavior
management procedures. First, the parents tried to give
directions in a way that made it easier for Amy to comply
and were encouraged to “catch Amy being good” (with